Overview

Description

The risk of Extreme Wildfires Events (EWEs) is increasing globally due to climate change. Those are complex events associated with high levels of uncertainty. Unfortunately, the capacity of fire emergency organisations to respond to those wildfires globally is limited, mainly due to the lack of data, science, and experience available on these phenomena. Without a better understanding and knowledge of EWEs, the safety of emergency responders, society and ecosystems is threatened. The EWED project will set up a testbed and open platform to advance in research and prepare European emergency response systems for extreme wildfires. 

For two years, the consortium will gather fire and atmosphere data from extreme wildfire behaviour that has the potential to become extreme events in European countries (Norway, Spain, Greece, Netherlands and others). These data will be used to populate a novel Open Data Portal. The complex processes involved will be adjusted based on the Large Eddy Simulation (LES). The results will be used to improve a land-atmosphere coupled model (Chemistry Land Atmosphere Soil Slab, CLASS) to learn and improve the understanding of the atmosphere-fire feedback during EWEs. The resulting model and data portal will allow real-time analysis of ongoing EWEs with atmosphere coupling. 

Finally, the results will be used to propose advanced guidelines and training on how to prepare and respond to extreme wildfires in Europe. In addition, the guidelines will provide recommendations on how to implement it in different European contexts, including new fire-prone countries in Central and Northern Europe that have not yet experienced those types of behaviour, ultimately improving Europe’s preparedness. 

The project will follow a co-production approach, involving practitioners in every stage of the process. Once the project ends, EWED will be a unique Hub that will contribute to developing capacity to prepare for EWEs in Europe and internationally.

Technical and scientific Work Packages (WPs)

Knowledge exchange (WP2)

WP2 gathers the scientific and technical results the project generates, and translates them into guidelines that emergency managers can follow to help them make decisions to prepare for and respond to EWEs.

Extreme wildfire data gathering (WP3)

WP3 oversees that firefighters from different countries collect atmospheric and fire data during real wildfires in the same way. It also develops the first global open online portal on EWEs. This portal contains those data and simulations of EWEs created from them, and seeks to facilitate the study of EWEs and support the decisions emergency managers have to make on how to manage EWEs.

Data processing and analysis (WP4)

WP4 uses data on the characteristics of fire and the atmosphere collected during real wildfires to develop simulations of EWEs for places or contexts for which there are no records of them. This tool helps emergency managers predict how real EWEs would evolve, and therefore decide on suitable strategies to deal with them.

Project content

News

EWED partners take part in workshop on data collection during wildfires

From 12 to 14 March, 28 EWED partners participated in a workshop on using radiosondes to collect and process real-time data during wildfires.

Towards a better understanding of Extreme Wildfire Events, EWED kicks off

The EWED project has officially started with a meeting between representatives of the participating organisations on the 30 and 31 January.

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Outputs & results

Partner organisations